Hey guys, it’s Tuesday and you know what that means! No, not $5 margaritas and $1 tacos (I’m so sorry) – it’s time to take a look at four new films to keep on your radar. SALINGER During summer vacation, my father forced me to spend at least an hour reading every day. As if reruns of Diff’rent Stokes were going to watch themselves. Gah dad, I hate you! Since I was subject to whatever we had in the house, I read a lot of dense material I couldn’t yet process. Novels like Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury went right over my sixth grade head but I remember being rather taken by J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories. Given my limited life experience, I didn’t understand any of its thematic elements, but something about the writing style and mood stuck with me on a visceral level. This and Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat were my favorite substitutions for Gary Coleman’s attitude that summer. I wouldn’t read The Catcher in the Rye for many years later and even though I was the right age at that time, it didn’t strike me the same way. Perhaps I was too smitten with Weird Al at that point to take it in. I didn’t start brooding professionally until my junior year. J.D. Salinger all but packed up his typewriter and went home following the success of Rye but he never stopped writing. Upon his death in 2010, the world learned that he had stockpiled volumes of unread, unreleased new material in vaults at his secluded home. The new documentary Salinger is an exploration of his enigmatic career, analysis of the cultural impact of his work and a mystery thriller surrounding the contents of the vault. Count me in.   SAVING MR. BANKS Mary Poppins and Bedknobs and Broomsticks were both a staple of my elementary school life. I got to watch them whenever my teachers had a hangover – back before I knew what “quiet time” really meant. Saving Mr. Banks is the based-on-a-true-story of Walt Disney trying to convince the original author of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, to let Dick Van Dyke sing with cartoons. Tom Hanks as Disney is about as perfect as casting gets and Emma Thompson is one of my favorite actresses. Considering Nanny McPhee uses magic to babysit rich brats, she should know a thing or two about screwing around with source material. Sometimes the behind-the-scenes of a project are just as interesting as the project itself. Sometimes not, but Finding Neverland worked so why not Saving Mr. Banks? I hope they spend a good portion of the film with Jason Schwartzman and Blow Job Novak arguing back and forth about Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. “Godammit! It’s SupercalifragilisticexpialidAcious – docious doesn’t make any fucking sense!” Is it too much to hope for a gentleman knife fight? What a minute? B.J. Novak? There’s goes the “true story” element. No way Walt willingly employed a jew.   LOVELACE No one has benefited more from Dina and Michael Lohan’s abject failure as parents than Amanda Seyfried. She assumed the career that everyone figured Lindsay would have post-Mean Girls. In fact, Lindsay was at one time attached to a similar project, one without funding of course. Seyfried, not Lohan, plays Linda Lovelace, Woodward and Bernstein’s anonymous Watergate source. Much like the flippant shaving habits of 70’s porn stars, it’ll either be a pleasant surprise or completely unwatchable, depending on your preference for mustaches and bush. The original Deep Throat, made back when we had to pretend that sex needed a plot – “Her clitoris is located in her throat, this is a serious issue you guys” – was wildly successful. Some of that due to mob money laundering via theater receipts but either way, it’s one of the most famous pornographic films ever produced. Lovelace eventually went on to denounce pornography and I wonder if they’ll include that...

What is there to say about a movie that features both a coked-up Michael Sera and a thousand foot demon with a swinging appendage the size of the Eiffel Tower except two points for audacity. This Is The End is a drug-fueled, man-child bromance as envisioned by John of Patmos and the head of the product placement department at Sony Pictures. An eschatological romp that, unlike the Left Behind series, has the presence of mind to take the evangelical holocaust of nonbelievers with its tongue planted firmly in cheek. Jay Bachurel is back in town to smoke weed, play video games and eat at Carl’s Jr with his childhood friend Seth Rogen. Bachurel isn’t much for the Los Angeles lifestyle, or the new show business friends he’s been replaced by. However, after a little cajoling, he tags along to a housewarming party at James Franco’s house where everyone from Rihanna to Emma Watson are in attendance. A 9.5 earthquake soon hits, sending the house guests into a hell pit outside and Rogen, Bachurel, Franco, Craig Robinson and Jonah Hill inside for refuge. With limited supplies, increasing chaos outside and the threat of internal collapse from Danny McBride, the stranded caricatures do their best to survive. With a movie like this, the only real question is whether it’s funny or not and barring equal amounts of tedium and hilarity, This Is The End is mostly amusing. It stutters when relying too heavily on tired pot jokes or bodily fluids but finds inspired silliness when dealing with the onslaught of earthquakes, demons and Danny McBride. I enjoyed its willingness to lampoon not only every actor involved (or their filmographies) but its gleeful descent into the absurd. It’s like a Kirk Cameron fever dream of what the end times will be like for the poor sinners of the thirty mile zone. Except that instead of a strict adherence to theological doctrine, the basic notions of human decency are required to gain access into heaven. Unfortunately, this being Hollywood, there’s little of that to go around. One of my favorite running jokes is the satirization of cinematic self-sacrifice as a shorthand for valor. Having been in so many movies, that’s the only way these actors can relate to the higher aspirations of the human spirit. A little indulgent to be sure, but very...