Our first summer feast was both delicious and nutritious (thanks to the high iron content), and with the festivities officially underway, we at AllMovie are ready to stuff our faces. So take a seat and have a look at this summer’s specials as AMG breaks down your movie food schedule for the coming months.

May 2
Made of Honor: Stale Wedding Cake.
Zagat says: Wasn’t that good when it was fresh.

May 9
Speed Racer: Pop Rocks and Redbull.
Zagat says: Worth the risk of your stomach exploding.

What Happens in Vegas: Crappy, overpriced room-service.
Zagat says: You know what it’s going to be like, so you’d better be starving.

May 16
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Renn Fair Turkey Leg.
Zagat says: As long as you’re wearing the cape, you might as well eat it.

May 23
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Grandma’s Mac and Cheese.
Zagat says: Might not be as good as you remember, but what you remember was really, really good.

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Robert Rodriguez has been responsible for some of the most intense sexual chemistry I’ve ever had with men I’ve never met. Obviously, he works with reasonably (or incredibly) attractive actors in the first place, but somehow, when he directs these guys on screen, he’s able to bring out a visceral, masculine hotness in them that surpasses the doability they exude on their own. Desperado, for instance, came out when I was 14 years old, and even when I watch the gunfight scene in the bar today, it still blows me away how well Antonio Banderas parlays a delicious and refined suavity into an erotic masterclass in badassery as the gunfight ensues. No offense to the casts of any of John Woo’s movies, but I’ve never been more fixated on a man wielding double hand cannons. And more recently in Planet Terror, I don’t even know if I would have recognized Freddy Rodriguez from Six Feet Under, but I know that watching him in ass-kicking, zombie-slashing, rescue-your-girl-and-then-attach-a-machine-gun-to-her-leg mode is an experience that even my deepest adolescent fantasies couldn’t improve on. I saw a clip or two of Freddy in some promotional interviews and don’t get me wrong, he’s a cutie, but he evokes none of the same blush-response that he does as El Wray. Maybe I’m an exhibitionist for exposing my fetishes to the masses, but I can’t believe I’m the only girl who takes such amorous delight in Rodriguez’s leading men. So thanks Rob, for sending us your messengers of sexiness again and again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be dreaming about Clive Owen’s scenes in Sin City 2.

In my original review of I Am Legend, I dubbed the film “more of a tantalizing, middle-of-the-road misfire than an outright failure.” Having recently had the opportunity to view the alternate theatrical version of the film included in Warner Brothers Home Video’s upcoming two-disc special edition of I Am Legend, that original sentiment takes on even greater meaning than it did in the original review.

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The Paris Hilton vehicle The Hottie and the Nottie opened in theaters last weekend and took home approximately $9,000 dollars, making it possibly the biggest box office bomb of all time.

The basic plot is that Hilton, the hottie, is best friends with Christine Lakin, the nottie. A guy is in love with Hilton, but can’t get over how crappy looking her friend is. Then the friend has a super sweet extreme makeover, takes off her kilo of fug makeup, and becomes equally as hot as Hilton (if still brunette), at which point the guy realizes he’s been in love with the ugly duckling all along. Obviously this movie sucks b#lls, but plenty of reviewers take care to point out how offensive the message of this story is, placing all the girl’s value on her physical beauty and implying she can’t get love without it.

Well, this probably sounds a little cynical but, to me, the dumbed down, superficial comedy based on the Pygmalion template is just another cheap staple of cinema, like Taming of the Shrew stories (when romance based on a ruse or a game turns real) or Prodigal Son stories (when the reckless hero redeems himself but it’s too late to avert tragedy).

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For those of us who love movies, the death of an actor is always an occasion for both mourning and celebration. We mourn the loss of performances not yet given, and we celebrate the great performances that have been preserved on film. News of Heath Ledger’s death, at the age of 28, certainly feels, in the moment, to be a case where the mourning will be felt more sharply than usual. The young man came out of the gates a handsome young lead, capturing a loyal female following with his work in 10 Things I Hate About You, and consolidating that fan base with the historical action romantic comedy A Knight’s Tale. In both movies he showed genuine charisma and star power, as well as solid comedic timing. He had matinee idol looks to be sure, but his quality work also hinted, for anyone paying attention, at what was to come.

In a move that few actors have the intestinal fortitude to attempt, Ledger got off the superstar career path and took a series of roles that challenged both himself and his audience. Starting with his brief but penetrating portrayal of a depressed police officer in Monster’s Ball, the young Australian actor made a clean break from the pages of Tiger Beat to the pages of Film Comment. His powerfully quiet work in Monster’s Ball was an affecting portrait of depression, one that gained power as the film devolved into screaming histrionics. He spent a few years on a pair of sweeping epics, Ned Kelly and The Four Feathers, but he gained a whole new measure of respect with his Oscar-nominated turn as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain. He was emotionally closed off, yet still communicated an internal pain felt by decades of not allowing himself to love and be loved in the way he desired. Ennis will be the role most associated with Ledger, and it is the kind of work that ambitious young actors should revisit again and again to understand what can be achieved if you have talent, ambition, script sense, and trust in your collaborators. He proved it is possible to get off the fame treadmill and become a respected actor.

This ability to change gears so substantially, to reinvent his creative self with such startling success, made Ledger an obvious choice to be one of the many actors who portrayed Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes‘ I’m Not There. He goes deep down the post-modern rabbit hole, playing an actor who plays Dylan in a movie within the movie, but his embodiment of a celebrity in a dying marriage lacks any affect or grandiosity. He cuts through the layers of post-modernism, and strikes right at the heart.

Ledger had great comic timing. He was more than credible as a romantic lead. But what people will miss most about him is that he was a method actor without the mannerisms. He had that rare ability to communicate a character’s inner life without any fuss or ostentation. His celebrity, something he never could fully evade because of his penchant for dating famous actresses, never got in the way of his characters. Turns out the leading man had character actor chops. It seems so very unfair to be writing about him in the past tense.